The present invention pertains to visors and particularly to the construction of an integral visor body and covering.
Visors have been manufactured in a variety of manners for several years. Some construction utilizes a folded polymeric core with a fabric wrapping which is adhered to the edges of the core as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,570,990. An adhesive and/or fusion process is employed for holding the fabric to the facing edges of this clamshell visor construction. Other visors have also employed polymeric visor cores which are fabricated covered and which have edge beads or welting material secured by, for example, stitching through the edges of the core for providing a trim edge to the visor. Such construction is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,926,470. A snap together visor core construction for holding the upholstery material to provide a trim appearing visor is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,946.
Other core materials have also been used for visors. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,193,323; 3,429,610; and 3,716,269 disclose foam core visors which employ a foam material reinforced by a wire or other frame structure which is subsequently covered with a polymeric material typically seam welded. Such visors have been in existence in European vehicles for many years.
More recently, visors have included a fiberboard core material which can be covered in a conventional manner such as by stitching or the like. One unique visor construction utilizes a folded fiberboard core in which no fabric stitching is required is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,532.
In all of these visor constructions, the upholstery material is added to a pre-existing core structure and subsequent cutting, bonding, welding, trimming, seaming, or other finishing steps are required. Although the resultant visors have, in recent years, provided a modern clean edge without the additional use of trim beads, the visor manufacturing requires multiple steps and significant additional costs both in terms of labor and machinery required to accomplish the upholstery techniques employed.